Like other research universities, Michigan State University has amassed a growing body of digital information. Much time, effort, grant funding, human capital, and research has gone into creating these digital resources—some of which only exist in digital form. All of MSU’s digital assets are at risk of eventually becoming inaccessible due to the ever-changing nature of technology. Through a collaboration of the University Archives, MATRIX, and the MSU Libraries, and with the support of the Office of the Vice Provost of Libraries, Computing and Technology, MSU seeks to develop a digital curation plan and guidelines to ensure trustworthy preservation, management, and stewardship of the university’s digital assets and intellectual property.
Anticipated outcomes of this MSU Digital Curation Planning Project include:
- Determining institutional readiness for digital asset preservation and management through a gap analysis of existing assets, technical infrastructure, and digital repositories at select MSU units.
- Providing units with guidelines on how best to preserve and manage existing digital assets and plan for the future, based on best practices, available resources, and anticipated future resources.
- Creating awareness of technical resources across campus.
What the MSU Digital Curation Planning Project will not do:
- Mandate one-size-fits-all digital preservation policies.
- Create and mandate the use of a one-size-fits-all data repository for the university.
- Address confidential or sensitive data.
The first step in this analysis will be a survey of campus units housing representative samples of major categories of data, including but not limited to: non-confidential administrative data, faculty and student research, theses, and dissertations; research data sets; instructional media resources; university publications; multimedia collections; and more. Again, no confidential data or data with security issues will be covered in the survey.